Ford threw most of his men into line at 3 p.m. He later calculated that his entire force, some of whom were ‘volunteers,’ had amounted to 275 cavalry and 25 foot soldiers to work the six guns. Years afterward he explained that the volunteers were French soldiers who had crossed the river to see a little action. Riding around in civilian dress, Ford placed one section of the battery on either end of his line and kept two guns in reserve. He gave Robinson the rest of his original battalion, bracing his right with the three companies under Captain D.M. Wilson.

Later Colonel Barrett claimed that he had wanted to bivouac that night on Telegraph Road, a better-drained thoroughfare that led directly to Port Isabel, where a transport could carry his troops back to Brazos Santiago. The arrival of Ford, whose force Barrett overestimated by a factor of two, changed those plans. Though Barrett still commanded 500 officers and men, he started falling back before the 300 Texans.

Veteran officers in the 34th Indiana found Barrett unimpressive, charging that he asked the most junior officers their opinions and requested their cooperation rather than giving orders. At one point he acceded to Lieutenant Jones’ request for 100 men to perform a ‘little maneuver’ on the Confederates, apparently directing Colonel Branson to follow the second lieutenant’s instructions. To even Jones’ surprise, Branson submitted, although Ford’s arrival canceled the experiment.

Ford took one company each from Robinson and Wilson to swing around his left and assail the Federal right. Two companies under Captains J.B. Cocke and John Gibbons strung out parallel to the Rio Grande, but wary Yankees saw the movement. Barrett directed Colonel Morrison to confront that threat with two more companies of the 34th, and Morrison sent Captain Abraham M. Templer out with Companies B and E.

The first rounds from Ford’s artillery struck the Federals at about 4 p.m., when Barrett’s line had fallen back to within a mile and a half of Palmetto Hill. Those first shells alarmed the Union soldiers, who had not suspected the presence of any guns and had none with which to reply. When Cocke and Gibbons opened fire on his right, Barrett started his main body to the rear at the double-quick. Lieutenant Jones reported that his men were too exhausted to serve as the rear guard, so Barrett ordered the 50 Texans to cover the retreat. First Lieutenant James Hancock, who commanded the Texans, complained that his men had already expended all but a couple of rounds of ammunition apiece, but Barrett ordered him out anyway with a promise to relieve him soon.

The two fleeing Union regiments left 100 of their comrades behind. Captain Templer, one lieutenant and 48 Indiana infantrymen were surrounded and compelled to throw down their arms. Company E was the color company of the 34th, and the prisoners included the men who carried the national and state flags. Sergeant John R. Smith, who bore the Stars and Stripes, took the state flag from Corporal George Burns and disappeared into the chaparral with both banners. He tried to swim the river with them, but when troops on the Mexican side fired on him he swam back, evidently losing the state flag near the far side. Troubled by an old foot wound, Smith could not outrun his pursuers, but he tucked the U.S. flag beneath some undergrowth along the riverbank just before Confederate cavalrymen caught up with him.

Lieutenant Hancock, his second lieutenant and 20 of their Union Texans also surrendered when they were cut off. In addition, nearly 30 stragglers from the 34th fell into enemy hands while their regiment raced toward Palmetto Ranch. The precipitous retreat quickly exhausted the Indiana troops. A few of the laggards did manage to swim the Rio Grande without interference.

Now Colonel Barrett ordered out several companies of skirmishers from the 62nd U.S. Colored Infantry to cover his rear and flank. The white regiment and the black one crossed paths near Palmetto Ranch, each breaking the other’s ranks. The 34th, which had been behind, took the road nearest the river, while the 62nd bore to the left and slowed its step to quick time. Still trotting at the double-quick, the 34th overtook the 62nd despite having the longer road around a bend in the river, and when the white regiment reached the far side of Palmetto Hill, it had taken the lead in the retreat. One witness later testified that Colonel Barrett had promised the Indiana troops he would stop and fight at Palmetto Hill, but instead he barely slowed the retreat.

Barrett ordered Morrison to keep up with the wagons, which rolled ahead of the harried column. Canteens, haversacks and even rifles littered the road in its wake. Morrison stayed near the head of his regiment, trying to reassure the men and maintain a pace that would not wear them out before they reached the relative safety of Boca Chica. He threw a company ahead to hold back anyone with the inclination to bolt, but the column still moved steadily forward. Occasionally a shell or a solid shot whistled overhead, after which a volley or two would come echoing back from the rear guard.

When the fugitives reached White’s Ranch, they still had another 12 miles to Boca Chica. Ford’s Confederates pursued doggedly, but from there the narrow peninsula foiled any flanking maneuvers. All the Confederates could do was hasten the withdrawal with artillery fire. Three miles from Boca Chica, one of the Federal wagons became mired in a bog, but the Indiana regiment filed around it and made for the boats. The sun had just set when the first of Morrison’s men reached the landing, rushing into the water to secure their places in the skiffs. A staff officer tried to hold them back so the wounded could cross first, but they ignored him.

The enemy was no longer in sight by now, so there was no need for such frenzy. With Union reinforcements just across the inlet, Colonel Ford preferred not to linger, but as he started back upriver he encountered Brig. Gen. Slaughter, who rode up at the head of 120 men of the other cavalry battalion. Slaughter told Ford to resume the pursuit. Ford argued against it, but Slaughter insisted and threw out such a heavy line of skirmishers that the Federals feared he meant to charge.

About 2l2 miles from the landing, Colonel Branson deployed his skirmishers one final time. Company K of the 62nd, under Captain Fred Coffin, spread out and leveled another volley at the Confederates, who returned it. The two lines fired ineffectually at each other for a few more minutes, and then Captain Coffin turned his line back to Boca Chica. The Texans eased their horses forward again, but the last shots of the Civil War had been fired. Slaughter thought better of his aggressiveness, and Barrett ferried the rest of his men across without further molestation.

When all the reports had come in, Colonel Barrett discovered that he had lost only one man killed, Private John Jefferson Williams, of Jay County, Ind. Nine men had been wounded and 103 officers and men captured, most of them from the 34th Indiana. Colonel Ford summarized his losses as ‘five or six, wounded.’ The prisoners from the 34th Indiana carried their comrade’s body to the outskirts of Brownsville, where they buried him.

One black soldier, Sergeant David Clark, evidently fell out on the retreat and spent the night of May 13 huddled in the chaparral a mile below Palmetto Ranch. Ford’s men found him as they swept back through at noon the next day. He was the last prisoner ever taken by the Confederate Army, and as Texans prodded him back toward Brownsville that afternoon, other horsemen came galloping up to the column with the battered national colors of the 34th Indiana. Military authorities recovered the state flag on the Mexican shore a couple of days later. The commander of the post at Bagdad, Mexico, turned it over to an Indiana lieutenant.

Within a fortnight of the battle, an official armistice ended the fighting in Texas, and on May 30 the 34th Indiana marched into Brownsville to begin occupation duty. That did not end the matter, though, for Colonel Barrett’s poor showing in his only engagement led him to bring charges against Colonel Morrison, on whom he tried to blame the disaster.

A court-martial sat on the case through late July and most of August, listening to conflicting stories divided along partisan lines. Witnesses from Morrison’s regiment gave testimony that supported him, while Barrett’s officers recounted versions that flattered their leader. Even Colonel Ford appeared on Morrison’s behalf, offering the embarrassing information that Barrett had fled before a force barely half the size of his own. Despite lax discipline in the 34th and the relative disorder of its retreat, the court refused to convict Morrison on a single charge or specification.

Apparently by virtue of overweening ambition, Colonel Barrett had initiated a perfectly unnecessary battle. Through his incompetence, he had given the dying Confederacy the satisfaction of claiming victory in the last battle of the war.

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This article was written by William Marvel and originally published in the February 2006 issue of Civil War Times Magazine.

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